Champagne-Urbana (or Urbana-Champagne)

I took a small trip to the University of Illinois earlier in October.  This was my annual Big Ten trip (last year, as you may recall, I was to make my first visit to Nebraska but my flight was canceled due to a snow storm). 

I had been at U of Illinois before, but this time I found out the reason that the city calls itself Champagne-Urbana but the univerisity is said to be in Urbana-Champagne.  The university straddles the two cities which are separated by Wright Street, but the home of the university president is in Urbana, which gives it the precendence, apparently.

Anyway, it is a nice city, we had some nice meals, and it was a good trip.  Even the drive - which skirts Gary and I have made meny times, always in terror, surrounded by semi trucks -- was not as bad as it has been for me in the past.

Grand Rapids

I used to live in the Grand Rapids area - granted, it was many years ago, but I don't remember it being so interesting.

Last month I was in the city for a short conference, and I was pleasantly surprised at both the diversity and cleanliness of the downtown area as well as the tour of the Fredrick Meijer gardens that was one of our evening entertainment events. The only thing I really did not like was the room in my hotel.

As I arrived, the downtown area was very busy with the Art Prize event. There were art pieces on the sidewalks and in the downtown museum, and there were crowds of people strolling the streets to look at them. The weather was sunny and crisp, which was perfect for viewing the pieces. There were a lot of great pieces, but here is one I liked - an ape made of forks.


The evening excursion to the Meijer garden was also art-related. There is an outdoor sculpture garden, indoor greenhouses (I especially liked the greenhouse containing the carnivorous plants), and an art gallery. The latter had a piece I really loved - it was a light installation with mirrors and pieces of colored glass that filled a wall. There were only two small, powerful spotlights, but the reflections, deflections, and color changes made a great piece. I really wanted it but I don't have that much clear wall space. Tragically. I don't know how you buy a piece like that, anyway. Do they come to your house and install it for you?

The hotel was, of course, the Amway Grand (that is the major conference hotel in Grand Rapids). The meeting rooms are beautiful, and the reception we had in the 27th story restaurant and bar was wonderful and gave a great view, but my personal hotel room was in the "old side" of the building and was not very comfortable. The obvious things were missing, such as a coffeepot and a fridge. The layout was a bit strange, with a lot of open space in the middle of the room but the desk faced away from the bed and the TV and was poorly lit for working.

But the trip was nice. I would spend more time in Grand Rapids.

The Concert Band Trip

It was the earliest of my travels - back in college when I was 20 years old, my college concert band did a band trip from Michigan to New York city, with stops along the way. We stayed with families from town to town until we got to NYC, where we stayed in a hotel and played our final concert in Town Hall.


This was the first time I had ever been in Pennsylvania and heard Pennsylvania Dutch accents. It was the first time I had seen an urban, mostly black high school (in New Jersey). And of course it was the first time I had been in New York, seen a porn movie house, or dealt with panhandlers on the street as I and another 20 year old wandered around Times Square.


This was probably my first taste of travel, and even though the majority of it was hard work (rehearsing and performing, sitting on a bus for hours every day), it was enlightening. I wish I remembered more about the trip, but it was quite a while ago.

Return to DC

Just got back from a long weekend in DC. This one was pure fun, and we drove, so we hit other states on the way. Pennsylvania in October is absolutely glorious. In the mountains the leaves are turning and the scenery is wonderful. I am glad I wasn't driving on that part of the trip out, because it was really worth looking at.


We arrived in DC on Friday evening after a 12-hour drive (which included time getting lost and retracing our steps), then had a meal and a drink in the hotel pub, then hit the sack to rest up for the weekend activities.


Saturday morning we spent at the National Zoo. This time I actually got to see the pandas, which on my last visit had stubbornly refused to emerge for viewing. They actually are not as big as I had imagined, as I had envisioned something about the size of a black bear. They aren't - they are more the size of a St. Bernard dog. But they are well worth seeing. The first one that came in for viewing stared at the people on the other side of the glass while rhythmically scratching his backside against a (fake) boulder. He looked pretty happy.


Of course we had to visit the big cats - tiger and lion - and the smaller ones, cheetahs that were very interested in the zoo keeper who apparently had the bucket of meat scraps for dinner. The cheetah enclosure is next to the zebras, and one cheetah kept venturning that way - he really wanted that zebra but there was no way he could get to it. This must have been an old game because the zebra just went on grazing. He would not have done that in the wild.


After the zoo, and a wonderful brunch, we got on the Metro for a trip to the Mall to see some of the monuments. We passed by the Washington Monument and spent a little time at the World War II memorial - not my favorite by a long shot - there is way too much froofraw on it. It was an important war but the iron wreaths and iron eagles and stone plinths are awfully aggressive. I wish they had done better.


The Korean War memorial is new since my last trip. That was a better one - the statues of the soldiers were solemn and sad. On a wall facing them are etchings of faces of service men and women.


Then we went to the Lincoln memorial - I had been there several times but not all of our group had, so we stayed a while there, then walked the Vietnam memorial wall to finish our tour. That one is my favorite and always is moving. Of course, Vietnam was "my" war - it ended when I was in my teens, but it was high in my consciousness for obvious reasons.


Across Constituition Avenue is the National Science Academy with a huge statue of Albert Einstein out front. He is sitting casually there - and apparently wearing Birkenstocks. Tourists were climbing up into his lap for photos, so I did too.


Then we walked north past the State Department - and quite a ways longer - onto the campus of George Washington University. Even more walking finally got us to a Metro stop, and we headed back to the area of our hotel to find a restaurant and have a drink and dinner. We had done more walking that day than I normally do in a week, so we were all ready for food and beer.


On Sunday, we all participated in the National Equality March. As with all marches, one can count on the fact that it will never start when it is supposed to. With a scheduled noon kickoff, the staging area was so full and crowded that it extended for several blocks and filled the side streets as well. We stood in the sun for over an hour before we detected movement. After about a block of marching, we were told that the front of the march had reached the Capitol Lawn, 2 miles away. Hmm. Sure seemed like there were a lot of people!


Anyway, we did make our way around the White House and down to the Capitol, listened to some speeches, then drifted off to the National Air and Space Museum for a while. Then it was on to the metro to the restaurant we had chosen the night before. Good move. We got there before the dinner rush and had another wonderful meal. I was the only one who skipped dessert, trying to be good after a weekend (so far) of eating things I probably shouldn't have - but the desserts my tablemates shared were pretty awesome, too.


Then it was back to the hotel to take our shoes off, relax, and repack for the trip home on Monday. A nice drive, good weather, but as always, it seems longer when you are going home.

"Superior"

Those not living in or near Michigan may not know that some who live in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan occasionally venture that they would like to be their own state, and they would call it "Superior". Michigan is unique in that it has two distinct land masses as a part of the state, with a beautiful, 5-mile long suspension bridge connecting the two parts. The Mackinac Bridge (pronounced "mack-in-naw") was constructed in 1957 after many years of attempting to get the project started. Apparently the ferry services, adequate in summer, weren't all that reliable in winter when the Straits of Mackinac iced over.

Although I have lived in Michigan all my life, and visited Mackinac Island twice (it is located just off the Straits nearer to the Upper Penninsula than the Lower), I hadn't actually explored the UP until 1994.
Once across the bridge, there are several destinations of interest. Almost directly north, the top of the UP almost touches Canada at Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced "Soo Saint Marie") which is also called just "The Soo". There are the famous locks that allow large ships to move from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and vice versa. Nearby is the Anchor Bar, where you can have a burger and a beer and look at trash and treasures covering every wall, from old license plates to stuffed deer heads, street signs, traffic lights, etc.

Watching a ship move through the locks is a slow but completely fascinating process, as the locks are barely wider than the ships that pass through them. The ship stops, the rear gates close, and then the water is pumped in to raise the ship, or out to lower it. It is fun to see the ship slowly rise or fall as the water fills or empties the chamber.

Then, later, we went to see the famous Taquamenon Falls. The upper falls drop 50 feet and the falls are over 200 feet across. The water looks rusty brown due to the iron content, but it still foams white at the foot. The lower falls are not as tall but still are worth seeing.

But the Taquamenon are only two of the many waterfalls in the UP. They are the "Niagras" of Michigan, but all over the UP you can park and hike along a trail, sometimes going carefully down wooden stairs with a wooden railing, or a wood-paved walkway deep into the woods. You will hear the water before you see it, but then, suddenly, there it will be. Some are barely a foot wide, others are quite large. The one I remember the best, although I didn't take a picture, was in a very green woods, curved toward us like a half a glass, and some parts fell ten feet to a rock ledge, boiled, and fell again in numerous cascades, while other parts fell freely fifty feet or more.

One more attraction that we saw that was memorable was the Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior. It requires you board a boat at the town of Munising, and even in July the wind on the lake is very cold. But the view of the carved and colored rock formations is breathtaking.

Almost as numerous as waterfalls are lighthouses on the Lake Superior shoreline. Some of them are very old and have been preserved as state or national historical sites. Some of them have houses attached, where the lightkeepers lived. Now most of them are museums or visitors' centers. One could spend many days looking at lighthouses.

Our trip to the Upper Penninsula took place in high summer, so we did get the benefit of good weather and easy driving, sunny days, and were able to spend a lot of our time outdoors. It made for a grand trip overall.

Growing up "Pure Michigan"

I went downstate to college, as most upstaters do. It may be hard to fathom, but one could draw a line, east to west, through the middle of Michigan's mitten, and it would be true that 90% of the population and the colleges are south of that line. Northern lower Michigan and the Upper Penninsula are very rural areas, sparsely populated, good vacation spots and wonderful places to raise children, but it is also the case that there isn't much there. It is hard to find work and one needs to drive tens of miles to do any major shopping.

After college, I moved to Lansing and have lived in the area around the Capitol City ever since. It is said that there are only three places to work in Lansing - state government, the auto industry, or at Michigan State University in neighboring East Lansing. Both state government and the auto industry have struggled in recent years, but I was fortunate to choose to work at Michigan State, so I have a secure job and, not incidentally, it has afforded me the opportunity to visit and cross off a number of the fifty states. More on that follows, of course, but attending conferences has taken me to many places in representing the university that I probably never would have seen in another line of work. It has enhanced my taste for travel far beyond what I would have been able to do on my own.

Lansing is a good place to live. A city of around 100,000, it is large enough that you can get a pizza delivered or find a video to rent within a mile of work or home, with three major malls to shop - no more driving fifty miles to buy bulk food or pick out a new refridgerator - and there are even international selections in restaurants due to the large international population drawn by the university. I find I like having the choice of twelve Chinese restaurants, another half-dozen sushi bars, Greek pizza, Italian and Mexican and Middle Eastern choices in abundance. Okay, I only know of one Thai place - but I am not that fond of Thai food so it's a matter of indifference to me.

Working on the campus of Michigan State University is a delight, every single day. It is one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen. On my drive to work, I pass the horse farm where mares and their foals graze in the spring. Then I pass between two golf courses and work my way past south campus, with their modern buildings, to the best part of the campus, North Campus, where the old architecture rules. Out of my window, I can see a garden with a fountain and a classroom building with gables and brick. An example can be seen at the left.

Lansing and its near neighbor communities have a lot to offer and I have been content to live here for more than 30 years. It's a wonderful jumping-off point, at the center of the mitten, and from here I have launched myself on many travels which I will journal here in later postings.

Born in Michigan

Michigan is my first state of the 50, since I was born here and have lived here my entire life. But I have had many homes in Michigan, in several cities and towns, and have traveled extensively through the state as well. I've had sixteen addresses in six cities and towns in Michigan, starting with in Harper Woods, a Detroit suburb, where I lived the first seven years of my life. I was actually born in the city of Detroit (the hospital was located there).

At the age of seven, I moved to Frankfort, a small town in northern Lower Michigan located on the Lake Michigan shoreline. The photo at right shows the archway over highway M-115 as you enter the town. It always made me feel like I was coming home to see the gateway, even years after I no longer lived there.

I think I learned to love the water while I lived in Frankfort. Whenever I was having a bout of teenage angst, I would go out and walk the lake shore. It was incredibly soothing - quiet and beautiful, even in the winter, and allowed the silence and solitude I needed to think things through.

The cry of the lighthouse on foggy mornings and the low bellowing of the car ferries as they prepared to voyage to Wisconsin were the background music of my life there. It was a great place to grow up.

Of course, things didn't last. My mother remarried when I was about fourteen, and for a short while - about nine months to a year - I was relocated to a suburb of Grand Rapids. I didn't think much of it either way - it was another city, not unlike Harper Woods, and I knew we were planning to return to Frankfort eventually so I didn't invest much in the city. These days, I enjoy. Grand Rapids and often visit there, but at the time it meant very little to me.

Next up - college and beyond